Thursday, August 23, 2012

German disinformation operations - The 1930’s crises and the mighty Luftwaffe

In the 1930’s
Hitler was able to outmaneuver the Franco-British alliance and achieve his
foreign policy goals without a shot being fired. After gaining power he
reintroduced military service and rebuilt the armed forces. In 1936 he remilitarized the Rhineland. In 1938 he
annexed Austria and parts of Czechoslovakia and occupied the rest in 1939.

At that time Germany was in the process of rebuilding its armed forces. A new German army could not be built
overnight and in the meantime France had the largest and best trained and
equipped army in Europe. At sea the huge British fleet could easily blockade
Germany.

How could
Hitler outmaneuver his opponents when they had the upper hand militarily?

The only way
for Hitler to pursue his policies was to use the Luftwaffe as a propaganda
weapon in order to intimidate his opponents.

In this
effort he was greatly assisted by the popular belief in the superiority of
airpower and the ability of the bomber to annihilate population centers.

The
unstoppable bombers and the knock-out blow

In the
inter-war period world opinion was fascinated by the progress of aviation.
Military officers disgusted by the senseless slaughter of the First World War
formulated new theories of war.

Instead of
having millions slaughter each other in the trenches countries could invest in
powerful bomber forces that would quickly destroy the enemy’s population
centers and industrial facilities.

The
‘prophets’ of this new strategic bombing theory were Billy Mitchell in the USA,
Giulio Douhet in Italy and Hugh Trenchard in the UK.

Popular
authors wrote best-sellers, such as ‘The gas war of 1940’, about coming wars
that would lead to the annihilation of cities by bomber forces.

Western
leaders were terrified of the knock-out blow, a sneak attack on their capitals
by a huge enemy bomber force. Official estimates were for hundreds of thousands
of casualties and the collapse of civil order.

Military
theorist Major-General J.F.C. Fuller
said:

London for several days will be one
vast raving Bedlam, the hospitals will be stormed, traffic will cease, the
homeless will shriek for help, the city will be a pandemonium. What of the
government at Westminster? It will be swept away by an avalanche of terror.

The Germans
worked hard to exploit these phobias.

German successes
in airshows

During the
1930’s German planes took part in many international airshows and impressed
observers with their performance.

For example
the Bf-109 equipped with a special 1,650 HP engine won in many categories in
the 1937 Zurich air show. The prototype Bf-109V1 set a world record by reaching
755km/hour by using a 2,300 HP engine but the Germans called it Bf-109R to give
the impression that it was a model in production.

The Dornier
Do-17 bomber also took part in the Zurich competition and outflew all the
foreign fighters. Again it was not the operational model but a prototype with a
special set of 1,000 HP engines.

Outside
observers had no way of knowing that the performance of these planes was not
comparable to the standard models.

Colonel
Lindbergh’s trips to Germany

Colonel Charles Lindbergh was
a celebrity in the 1930’s and when he visited Germany, between 1936 and 1938, he
was given a tour of Luftwaffe airports and production facilities.

In his
reports to US military authorities he stressed that the Germans were world leaders
in a series of aviation technologies.

His
statements to the press presented a powerful Luftwaffe equipped with thousands
of modern planes.

Airpower
and the Spanish civil war 1936-39

The Germans
sent a small air detachment equipped with fighters, bombers and recon planes to
fight for the Nationalists in Spain. This unit gained world fame far in excess
of its contribution to the military campaign.

Pro-communist
propaganda did the Germans work for them by portraying German bomber attacks as
holocausts.

The well
known Guernica story is a case in point. The number of actual casualties was
inflated in newspaper accounts by several orders of magnitude.

This attack
on a civilian target may have turned public opinion against Germany but for the
leading circles in France and Britain it was further proof of the Luftwaffe’s
destructive power.

General
Vuillemin’s visit

In 1938 the
head of the French airforce General Vuillemin visited
Germany and was taken around to see the rebuilt German airforce.

Everywhere he
went he saw huge numbers of modern aircraft parked at runways. In exhibitions
the German planes seems to be much faster than their counterparts in other
countries.

During a trip
on his transport a new German fighter flew by so fast that it made him feel he
was stationary. With planes like these Germany was unstoppable.

What the
General didn’t know was that the same planes were taken from airport to airport
in order to impress him with their numbers.

As for the
model he saw from his plane, it was again a mirage. The German transport pilot
had skillfully reduced speed to the absolute limit and the fighter passed by at
full speed thus giving the impression of unequaled speed!

When Vuillemin
returned to France he warned the country’s leaders that the French airforce
would be easily destroyed by the Luftwaffe.

British hawks
vs doves

In Britain
the elite were split between those who supported appeasement and those who
wanted rearmament.

The first
group led by Prime Minister Chamberlain believed it was not in British best
interests to intervene in Central European affairs and wanted to avoid
excessive military spending.

The hawks led
by Vansittart, Eden and Churchill wanted to build up the armed forces and
especially the RAF in order to counter the expansionist plans of the
dictatorships.

Both sides
unwittingly supported the German disinformation effort.

The doves
presented the threat posed by the Luftwaffe as a reason for avoiding conflict.
The hawks overstated Luftwaffe strength in order to force the government into
spending more for the military.

The Germans
were able to feed disinformation to British officials both through the media
but also through a disinformation operation. In the 1930’s the Abwehr had
succeeded in identifying the British intelligence officers in Holland and had
managed to recruit some of them. At the same time they had a spy
inside MI-6.

German
officials controlled by the Abwehr became fake British spies and gave manufactured
information to the already identified British intelligence officers.

This material
was accepted by the Brits since it fitted with their view of a powerful
Luftwaffe.

German
self-deception

The German
propaganda offensive was so successful that even the German leadership was
tricked into overestimating the capabilities of the Luftwaffe. In July 1939
Hitler visited a special exhibition of the latest Luftwaffe aircraft at Rechlin
airport.

All the
models presented were clearly ahead of anything the Allies could field. With
these types into production the enemies of the Reich would be easily smashed.

Strengthened
by this display of airpower Hitler was ready to risk going to war.

There was
just a small problem. All the models presented were research models or were
using special equipment that could not be mass produced. Goering was furious at
his subordinates for tricking the Fuehrer. In 1942 he said: ‘I once witnessed a display before the war at
Rechlin, and compared with that I can only say – what bunglers all our
professional magicians are! Because the world has never before and never will
again see the likes of what was conjured up before my – and far worse, the
Führer’s – eyes at Rechlin!’

Conclusion

For most of
the 1930’s Germany was weak militarily. This weakness should have led the National
Socialist party into following a peaceful foreign policy.

Instead the
Germans were able to manipulate foreign opinion and give the impression of
great military power. Through the skillful use of propaganda and disinformation
Britain and France were unable to intervene as their Allies in central Europe
were forced to accept Hitler’s demands.

Fearing
devastating bomber attacks on their cities foreign leaders were forced to
capitulate to Hitler’s demands. At the same time Hitler’s forces were not ready
for a serious conflict.

In the end
however the German leadership became just as infatuated with the idea of an
invincible airforce and Hitler’s decision to risk global war in 1939 may be
attributed, in part, to it.

Sources: ‘Intelligence and strategy: selected
essays’, ‘Deception: The Invisible War
Between the KGB and the CIA’, ‘London calling North Pole’, ‘The War Path:
Hitler's Germany 1933-1939’, ‘The right of the line: the Royal Air Force in the
European War, 1939-1945’, Wikipedia